This is a JGR patch with several NewGrfs (see attached screenshot). I just noticed the two warnings, but I'd be surprised to find that either one is causing this issue.

In the attached savegame, I expanded Woodbury East to three tracks by adding the section furthest from the town center. Now no train will use the middle track.

Trains serving Oakhurst use three of the four tracks, but I built the station with 4 tracks. Trains serving Essex will occasionally use the third track (the one that ends there) which was added. Waco Industrial was built with 4 tracks, and trains will use any of the sections as needed.

I've tried deleting and re-adding signals and sections of track on the Oakhurst side of the station as well as deleting and re-adding signals on the Essex side. I've tried dropping a default station onto the existing, and destroying the existing station and building a default in its place. I've double-checked the signals and the track speeds. I just don't get why trains won't use the middle track there.

I don;t have JGRs version, so I can't even load the save game (a picture of the situation would have been helpful), but start with checking if the middle platform is even usable. The simplest way to do that is by making the other platforms unreachable by taking out the track just before it (and after it if it's accessed from both sides).

With less platforms you will likely cause havoc in train flow, so you may want to do this experiment after saving, so you can revert to the save after resolving the problem.

Being a OpenTTD developer does not mean I know what I am doing.
Also, other OpenTTD developers may have different opinions.

I can't see the problem , trains use the shortest routes , If you want to get a train to use a specific platform or track then use waypoints . Go to Station A ,Go Via Waypoint Platform 3 , Goto Station B .https://wiki.openttd.org/Waypoints . Your Grf prob is just a loading order error , click on the warnings there is an explanation , nothing you can do about the bridges .

Sorry; I figured since it was a JGR game, it might be better to just upload the savegame.

Hadn't thought about using waypoints, but that's more managing than I'd like to do (or think I should need to do). Trains wait to enter the outer tracks when the middle track stays open and unused. Just doesn't make sense to me.

Alberth wrote:screenshot of piratescooby shows a reserved tile track with the 2nd platform....

Not exactly. It's only a 2-track station at that screenshot. Not sure how piratescooby got there.

At any rate, I played with it some more, even removing the RH station section (closest to town center) along with the track there. The next arriving train still didn't move until I forced it to ignore signals. I let it cycle twice, and then replaced the station piece, and behavior reverted back to abnormal.

Just weird.

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Bob
The wrinkles only go where the smiles have been...Me, elsewhere

Would you be able to upload a savegame of the 3 track layout which doesn't work as expected?
I performed a minimalist conversion to 3 tracks and it seemed to work fine, all platforms were used.

I should point out that the current layout is prone to deadlock, as you have trains coming from the north-east which terminate at and reverse in the station, however the bidirectionally signalled tunnels permit further trains to enter from the north-east whilst the platform is occupied in a south-westerly direction, in which case the train occupying the platform would be unable to reverse and end up waiting indefinitely.

Eddi wrote:i'd say it's a problem with the "signals in tunnel", which is notoriously unfinished and doesn't behave properly in combination with path signals.

i don't understand how anyone could ever use that patch. in any case, make sure there is at least one block signal before and after such a signals-in-tunnel section

The implementation which is included in the patchpack is not the same as the various patches posted on these forums.

Eddi wrote:i'd say it's a problem with the "signals in tunnel", which is notoriously unfinished and doesn't behave properly in combination with path signals.

i don't understand how anyone could ever use that patch. in any case, make sure there is at least one block signal before and after such a signals-in-tunnel section

Bingo. I removed the tunnel signals and added a block signal on the NE end of the station right before the tunnel. Now NE-bound trains use the center track. There's more volume for NE-bound (from Oakhurst) trains than others, so I don't expect to see center usage from SW-bound trains (from Essex).

I use the NewGRF mainly for eye candy, honestly.

JGR, the savegame in my original post was not working the way I expected it to work.

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Bob
The wrinkles only go where the smiles have been...Me, elsewhere